thenearshore | 018 | Season Spirits

Who: Everyone!
What: Season spirits and spooky things
When: IC August 1-15
Where: The Near Shore and Far Shore
Summary: It's the time for spirits to get a bit more 'lively'.

August is a spiritual season in Japan with many people preparing for the Obon festival but many others get into the spirit in another way. All across Japan, people have begun to share their favorite summer ghost stories. Movie theaters advertise the hottest horror flick of the season, teenagers challenge each other to do trials of courage, haunted houses begin to pop up, and it feels like you can't change the channel without switching to some ghost hunting urban legend special. All of this talk about spirits comes at a cost, though.

July comes and passes easily enough but it's almost as if as soon as August begins, so do the incidents. There's an increase in spiritual activity and shenanigans on both shores. Some of them are harmless spooks but others are much more sinister. Arm yourselves with all of the ofuda and omamori you can find and get out there and restore peace!

Possessed Possessions

Inhabitants of the Far Shore may awaken to find their sheets trying to strangle them and shoes stomping on the floor around them. Others may go about their day and find out their teapots suddenly only serve lukewarm tea or their weapons are trying to take swings at them. They're just playful spirits that will abandon their hosts if you shove any ofuda/omamori at them or yell loudly enough. They aren't malicious spirits... they were only just trying to have some fun.

Spirited Festivals

There's a festival every weekend and some of them have set up haunted houses for patrons to visit. You have your standard haunted house thrills... costume make up, jump scares, special effects smoke, the usual! But it looks like some real ghosts have made themselves at home here. Visitors are going in and emerging hours later absolutely traumatized. It looks like once you enter, the real spirits walk you around in circles and give you real scares. There are some spirits here just to have fun thrills and these are spirits that can be chased away with regular ofuda. But it looks like the more violent ones are actually ayakashi out for vengeance. Be careful in there!

Cursed Charms

There sure are some weird trends out there, huh? The latest one is buying cursed trinkets off the internet and passing them off as gifts to unsuspecting victims whether it be to prank a friend or get revenge on an enemy. Cursed mirrors, dolls, fake ofuda, VHS tapes, and so on are being passed around the Near Shore and spreading all sorts of curses.

Bad luck. As long as you're in possession of the cursed item, you'll be followed by bad luck to varying degrees depending on the quality of the charm.
Fear. Holding onto this charm results in intense, crippling fear. The fear can manifest as an intense paranoia at all times or being frozen with fear in the face of danger. Some say you can even die of fright...
Sickness. This charm is pretty straightforward. Having this charm just makes you feel incredibly under the weather and your health will worsen the longer you have the charm.
Evil. Holding onto this charm results in you being followed attracting evil instead of warding it. Suddenly, you feel as though you are always being followed, as if something is stalking you and clearly out to get you. You begin to run into smaller ayakashi at first but they keep growing in strength and number until you can't fight anymore.
Bad romance. Someone's meddled with a romance charm so it ends relationships instead of making them! People stuck with this charm are suddenly hyper aware of the faults of others. Everything gets on your nerves and you can't stand being around that person because they're just that annoying. It doesn't just work on couples! It also works on friends and relatives too.
Bears? An oddly specific curse. It looks like someone has taken a protection from bears charm and made it so now you attract bears where ever you go. Some of them are nice but others...

You can try to destroy the charms but you will find that unless you have purification powers or rend it, the effects last. It looks like most people have been able to shake off the effects by simply disposing of them at temples and buying another charm to counter the effects.

Haunting Hour

There are reports of violent attacks at night-- people being pulled into alleys and attacked, school children being chased by slashers while walking home from school, homes being broken into-- and all of it is done without a single clue left behind to explain who did it. People are warned to be careful at night and as the sun begins to set, something happens. The hour between sunset and dark is supposed to be the scariest hour them all. At this time, the shadows are suspiciously bigger and darker and you constantly see things just out of the corner of your eye. Suddenly, the wind blows cold and there's a rotten smell in the air like blood. It's Oumagatoki, the hour evil spirits meet. Small time ayakashi and spirits on the verge of becoming ayakashi spill into the streets and begin to terrorize others. Protect the people of the Near Shore and watch your own backs.*

* These are just generic ayakashi! Nothing special, nothing specific. Feel free to make up and NPC your own two-bit ayakashi.

THEN WHO WAS PHONE?

In the evening, everyone will receive a set of coordinates and a message from an Anonymous sender,

I want to talk about the
mysterious things that have been happening
lately.
OF course, i
NEED
EVERYONE to come. so don't be
late! see
yoU.
:)

Everyone receives it and there is no way to track where the message came from. If you follow the directions, you'll arrive at a small temple on the outskirts of a city. A sacred fire is lit on the grounds for people to dispose of any cursed or old charms they may have collected. Hang around a bit and it'll become obvious that no one knows who has gathered all of you here tonight. The only ones around are gods and shinki. It doesn't look like any evil spirits are around so other than being invited to the middle of no where at night... there's nothing to worry about. If you wait around, nothing will happen. So while you're here, you might as well discuss the strange happenings! Or tell ghost stories around the fire.

Wildcard

Choose your own adventure! Feel free to make up your own prompts. Ronald Knox's player (

diehardreaper) has offered up their temple as a test of courage in the Far Shore for those who want to try their luck. Check out their description under the Baron's manor.

In Summary:

Beat the heat by feeling a scary chill
Deal with cursed and spirit-imbued items
Keep the Near Shore people safe
Chat about your scary encounters
Have fun~

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Can we really just leave it to that...? If cursed items are being spread around, then there's probably a source, right?

I'm not sure, honestly. [Maria seems a bit troubled about the possibility.] It is the right season for it, or so I hear, but it could be a sign of something worse. Right now, though, we have nothing to go on.

....Because it's getting close to Obon, right?

Right. I think spirits are supposed to be more active at this time of year, according to the legends.

[Maria hasn't done nearly as much reading as she would like, but she knows that much.]

You'd think the Heavens would give us a heads up about that kind of thing, then.... It's not all Japanese gods or people here.

You'd think. The only reason I know about it is because I was living in Japan before I got here, but they seem to think everyone should be familiar with the traditions already.

[True, a little reading goes a long way, but there are certain details that are likely to slip through the cracks.]

Maybe that should be a part of the pamphlets I've seen being talked about. If we're so focused on educating everyone...

Unfortunately, I think those pamphlets were quite full already...any more and we're going to have to be handing out instruction manuals on arrival instead.

[Which would probably help the people who bothered to read them, but most wouldn't.]

Or force someone to start dragging people into classes...

[A considering pause. Chikusa, no.]

Assuming we had enough volunteer teachers. It was a god who put together the pamphlets, wasn't it?

[Aidos, she remembers the post about it saying. She might have met him before, but it's been a little while since.]

Yes.... He made a post on the network about it. Why?

It just seems like that's a sign that shinki haven't been so active in making those kinds of movements yet. Maybe some more prompting would help.

[Some might not think it's their place, but Maria can't agree with that outlook from any angle.]

....So harass them until someone steps up to the plate...?

That's one way of looking at it. [Maybe not "harass", but the intent would be close enough in the end.]

We'd have to find people good enough for that kind of thing.... We don't want an idiot organizing stuff like that.

How many shinki are good enough to train something like that? It's not the sort of thing that would be easy to police.

[And not all the shinki that good would necessarily want to be involved, either.]

Who knows... It's not as if the Heavens take a census, right? Although that kind of thing would be difficult anyway...

[Hard to take a headcount when the heads are constantly disappearing or new ones join the fray.]

That's what I thought. About the only way to keep track is through contact lists, and even then there's no way of knowing who's actually who or their abilities.

[So they'd basically have to go and personally pester every shinki here for the appropriate information.]

[Chikusa makes a low but loooooooooooooong noise of annoyance.]

The afterlife is so annoying.

That's one way to look at it. [Maria sighs a little. It's not the word she'd use, but there's definitely something a little irksome about the general lack of organisation here.]

And other ways?

[He's here for the salt, Maria, go for it]

"Badly organised" is how I'd put it myself. [Some aspects of it are fine and even good, but others are a certifiable disaster.] I'm afraid I had to give up on giving those in charge the benefit of the doubt a while ago.

Unfortunate that we don't have anyone in a better position to take charge... But I guess that's a possibility of what those people who are against Amaterasu want to do.

Nobody who's willing to burn down temples to get what they want is going to be a better leader than what we have now.

[There's something firm and hard in Maria's tone there. She's seen those kinds of people try to take power too often - made that mistake herself, in fact.]

No.... But it could be their goal anyway. And honestly.... [He leans back a bit more, mouth quirking.] I'm inclined to think they're cleverer than Heaven.

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